Barter Settlements Grow in Q3

For the first time in three years, an increase in barter settlements was registered in the third quarter of 2002. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov released this information at the opening of today's government meeting. This meeting is to be devoted to discussing the results of the social and economic development of the country in the first nine months of 2002. Kasyanov pointed out that this concerned state-owned companies. In his opinion, these companies must make a decision to ban such kind of settlements.

Additionally, the Prime Minister pointed to another negative trend in the development of the Russian economy, which was an increase in the number of state employees. As the head of the government said, this meant that the state sector of the economy was for rendering social aid. "There are reports that people who have left dynamically developing sectors of the economy are employed in the state sector because they cannot create medium and small businesses or even cannot find a job in this sector", Kasyanov stressed. In his opinion, this testifies to the inadequacy of the development of small businesses.

Summing up, the Prime Minister said: "In order not to overshadow the situation completely, I would like to point out that the Russian economy has been developing stably; however, it is necessary to develop a number of specific measures, which could improve this situation". It is also necessary to tune the mechanism of detailed monitoring of the situation in the Russian regions, Kasyanov stressed.